That's hockey
Lemay nets winner in high-tempo afternoon affair

Ottawa -- If the OSMHL wants to do something about the quality of hockey played on its ice surfaces, perhaps it should schedule more Sunday afternoon matinees like the one that saw Xpertek HC do battle with Trains and Airplanes at Carleton University yesterday.

In what will go down as one of the most memorable games in Xpertek/Carver Communications history, the boys in white walked away with a hard-fought, hard-earned 2-1 victory in game that saw both teams trade chances right up until the final buzzer.

T&A opened the scoring and held onto the 1-0 lead going into the final frame. At that point, Xpertek HC's veteran experience kicked in and ultimately took over against the brash young team in black.

First, Bryan Bernard -- in his second call-up appearance of the season -- scored one of the most memorable goals in team history on a fake-and-bake dash up the middle in which he lulled the defender to sleep at the red line before setting himself up for a breakaway dangle to the top shelf.

"Been practising that move in my basement since I was a kid," Bernard said. "I'd strap on the roller-blades and motor my way around the cement floor preparing for a moment like that. The move had a little Jake the Snake Roberts to it, meaning that I put the dude right to sleep when I slowed down," he added.

Tony Lemay would score the winner later on in the period, burying a Marc Baril rebound for the go-ahead goal. The marker was a demonstration of brute strength on Lemay's part, as he was forced to carry a T&A defender on his back from the red line in.

"Sacrament, j'l'avais su l'dos depuis la ligne rouge. J'la méritais celle-là!"

After that, it was the Pat Lafontaine show, with the veteran French-Canadian netminder turning away T&A attackers at every turn. By no coincidence, Lafontaine's awesome performance came with an entire section of family watching from the stands, as the four p.m. start meant that his wife and kids could see that he really is as good of a goaltender as he says he is!

Now riding a three-game win streak, Xpertek HC next takes to the ice on Sunday, November 30, back to reality with an 11 p.m. start.


THREE STARS
1. Bryan Bernard -- Killer move makes him a spare worth calling back
2. Pat Lafontaine -- Stellar goaltending performance... again
3. Brett Kubicek -- Steady play at both ends in return from injury inspires teammates to play hard

Xpertek HC rebounds in style
Management tongue-lashing sends team on two-game win streak

Ottawa – For nearly a full period last night, it looked like Initiation Hockey on the Bob McQuarrie Recreation Centre ice surface. On no less than a dozen occasions, referees were forced to whistle plays dead because players had gone off-side.

It wasn’t pretty.

With little going in the way of momentum, it was difficult for either team to muster any offence in a low-scoring affair that Xpertek HC eventually walked away with by a 2-1 count.

“What the hell were our forwards doing,” wondered defenceman and father-to-be Pierre Bouwhuis. “It’s like they completely lost track of how to play the game. I mean, it’s not friggin’ rocket science.”

“Remind us again about off-side,” said new father and dependable winger John Richardson. “Does the player or the puck have to cross the blueline first?”

“Based on how confused we looked it might have been a better idea to scrap the rules altogether and play with pond hockey abandon instead. Jeezus!”

Despite an early inability to string together two passes in a row or enter the offensive zone with any kind of aplomb, Xpertek HC did eventually manage to open the scoring on a rare occasion where the puck went from tape-to-tape-to-tape without a whistle blown in between.

Streaking through the neutral zone with his distinctive deceptive speed, winger and non-father Adam Hendriks – fresh from a foray deep into South American badlands – dangled his way through a pair of Undead backcheckers before dishing a sweet feed over to childless centre Steve Parker just as the two entered the zone on-side.

Parker carried the puck up the right wing boards, cut towards the net, then saucered a crisp backhand pass over to power forward and three-time procreator Christian Renaud, whose deft touch around the net allowed him to score his second goal in as many games.

It was a beautiful tally that reminded those watching why the OSMHL needs to revisit its asinine one-assist policy.

“Adam started that whole play,” said soon-to-be father of three Marc Baril. “He broke out of the zone. He carried the puck up the ice. He dished it off. Yes, Childless Steve did some good work too, but that set-up in the neutral zone deserved to be recognized on the scoresheet.”

Also not appearing on the scoresheet but worth mentioning is the solid piece of puckstopping work that goaltender Pat Lafontaine put together.

On more than one occasion he was peppered from in close, but each time the ‘father-of-two, only-two, and-not-a-chance-for-more-than-two’ came up with timely saves, some of them worthy of TSN Highlight of the Night contention.

For awhile, it looked like a shutout was in the cards for Lafontaine, but the Undead managed to break the goose-egg with only 50 seconds left in the game.

Hendriks was particularly concerned that he wasn’t properly positioned on the shutout-breaking goal.

“I’ll tell you what. I just spent a week in the Costa Rican rainforest, fighting off critters of all kinds on a mission to disband an army of indigenous small arms dealers who were holding a pack of domesticated monkeys hostage… and to me, dealing with all of that was easier than trying to figure out if I needed to rush the defenceman or cover the low slot after the play got scrambly in the circle.”

“It’s a tough game, this hockey thing. I’m just glad Etienne Dutrisac’s first legitimate goal of the season stood up as the winner,” Hendriks added.


THREE STARS

1. Pat Lafontaine – Solid effort gave Xpertek the win
2. Adam Hendriks – Big first game after heroic honeymoon mission
3. Pierre Bouwhuis – A force to be reckoned with, plain and simple

Ghosts of Grandmaitre look out for Xpertek HC
Ghastly refereeing helps too

Ottawa – At first glance, the Bernard Grandmaitre Arena gives off no illusions of being haunted. But like the Montreal Forum of old, its rafters must harbour the ghostly spirits of hockey heroes past, for Xpertek HC found itself on the fortuitous end of some phantom help in a rare Tuesday night tilt for the beleaguered squad.

Coming off back-to-back losses that had team officials fuming, Xpertek needed a bounce-back performance of impressive proportions to quell the discontent that has been boiling in the management suite.

As one would expect of as talented a team as this one, the boys in white came through with a solid effort that saw them walk away with a well-earned two points in the standings, and in the process silence the naysayers that began to speak up in the wake of a two-game losing streak.

The result, however, wasn’t all attributable to good old fashioned hard work. Xpertek HC caught a couple of big breaks en route to a 4-3 victory over the Battlecats.

With the game tied at one late in the first period, Etienne Dutrisac walked in unchecked from the blueline and rifled a shot that dribbled through the goaltender but stopped just short of crossing the line.

Mysteriously, the referee blew the play dead and called it a goal.

“No doubt, la puck ‘aitait d’dans… ‘aitait d’dans, ‘aitait d’dans, ‘aitant d’dans. C’est mon premier but d’l’année pis vous allez m’dire qu’aitait pas d’dans. Boule shit. ‘Aitait d’dans,” said an agitated Dutrisac after the game before a number of teammates confirmed that in fact “la puck ‘aitait pas d’dans!”

Later on, after minor league call-up Hughes Bisson had given Xpertek the lead, the Battlecats appeared to have tied the score on a high wrist shot but once again the head referee, lagging behind perhaps because of the heavy gut that gave him the allure of an inflated zebra, erred in his judgement and failed to see that the puck had in fact gone in.

On the strength of that break, Xpertek HC managed to maintain the lead for the remainder of the game and hang on for the victory thanks to a Christian Renaud howitzer-slapshot that would stand up as the winner.


THREE STARS
1. Etienne Dutrisac -- Non-goal goal a big goal to open scoring
2. Christian Renaud -- Winning goal erases the last zero in Xpertek forwards' goal column
3. Ghosts of Grandmaitre -- Leave their invisible fingerprints on the game

Too much T&A for heavy-legged Xpertek HC
Management shocked by uninspired effort

Ottawa – The doors to the Xpertek HC dressing room remained closed to the media long after the division-leading club suffered a 4-1 loss to the Trains & Airplanes in Sunday evening’s marquee OSMHL match-up.

Sources say that team management was unimpressed with the uninspired effort and vowed to crack down on all extra-curricular activities that might influence the team’s showing on the ice.

“We’re told that one of our players – Adam Hendriks – had the audacity to invite his teammates to wedding festivities held in his honour,” said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“Hendriks should have known that we could be playing the next night, and therefore should have postponed his wedding to the off-season, cancelled it altogether, or at the very least chosen to get married mid-week, when the team rarely plays.”

While team officials were understandably upset with Hendriks, it was team rep, Marty Leroux, who bore the brunt of management’s criticism.

“Leroux was there. He saw that his teammates were drinking and acting irresponsibly. He saw them showing total disregard for their bodies, but even worse, for the sacred colours of the Xpertek Construction Inc. Hockey Club, the night before a game. You would expect that a so-called team rep would understand the ramifications of such behaviour and step in to put an end to it, but what did he do? He got as drunk – if not drunker – than the rest of them.”

“That’s not leadership. That’s… that’s… that’s crappership,” the source bellowed from deep inside the bowels of Fred Barrett Arena, where the Xpertek loss brought the team’s record to 4-2 on the season.

“I’ll tell you one thing, there will be no more fun to be had outside of the rink this season. And put this in the fu**ing paper in big, bold letters so my players read it tomorrow: WEDDINGS, BIRTHDAYS, PARTIES, CHILDBIRTHS OR ANY OTHER CELEBRATIONS OF ANY KIND THAT MIGHT BRING ON DEFEAT FOR THIS TEAM WILL NOT BE TOLERATED FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE SEASON. AND CHRISTMAS IS CANCELLED FOR XPERTEK HC THIS YEAR,” the source fumed.

When asked if he saw any positives in any of the players, the source was terse in his reply: “No, and I would advise your piece of crap paper to not even bother posting a three-star selection. In my book, no-shows equal no-stars.”

Defeat spells victory for Xpertek HC
Loss keeps team from being bumped-up to higher division

Ottawa – In the end, the 4-3 defeat Xpertek HC suffered at the hands of the Capitals in Sunday night OSMHL action was a blessing in disguise.

The loss, which gave Xpertek a 4-1 record in qualifying play, kept the team from being moved up to a higher division where the older legs on the squad may have struggled to keep up.

“I guess Pat Laf saved our asses afterall,” said Marc Baril. “It’s not often that a team appreciates fluky goals against, but it turns out those two that went in early in the first were good for us.”

Baril was alluding to two bad bounces that put Xpertek HC in an early
2-0 hole.

On the first goal, netminder Pat Lafontaine left his crease to play the puck behind the net, but rather than stopping dead along the boards the puck inexplicably jumped back into the blue paint where a Capitals player, staring at 24 square feet of empty cage, shoved it in with little trouble.

On the second goal, a series of miscues high in the Xpertek zone saw the puck ricochet off at least three bodies before it began skidding in Lafontaine’s direction.

In an odd looking play, Lafontaine tried to simply shoo the puck to the corner but completely missed it. His teammates could only watch in disbelief as the puck inched its way through the five hole and beyond the goal-line to put the Caps up by two.

After the game, Lafontaine could find only one word to sum up his performance.

“Tabarnac,” he repeated over and over and over again, to no one in particular, but with enough conviction to let it be known that he was displeased with the turn of events.

Eventually, he would mellow enough to say that it “felt like l’Halloween out dere. Give, give, give. The only thing that would have made it better for dem is if maybe I dipped those pucks in chocolate and covered dem with those little multicolore sprinkles… man, those things are good, but the first two goals tonight – bad, bad, bad.”

Despite the 2-0 deficit, Xpertek would eventually claw back to tie the game.

Sniper Adam Hendriks, an out-of-nowhere favourite to capture the Bart Cross trophy as the league’s leading scorer this year, potted his fourth goal of the season after burying a Tony Lemay pass on a two-on-one rush late in the first period.

Baril would bring Xpertek back to even mid-way through the second frame with a sizzling snap shot that beat the Capitals goaltender through the wickets.

“I was aiming top shelf all the way, but my shot is shit so I hit the five-hole instead,” Baril later admitted in a refreshing moment of athletic honesty.

After the Baril marker, both teams traded chances often. Just when it appeared as though the game might be decided in a shootout, the Capitals managed to score on a broken play that sent a forward in alone to beat Lafontaine high on the glove side.

The Capitals would add an empty-netter with just under a minute left, before Marty Leroux – who with defence partner Brett Kubicek never left the ice all night – would draw Xpertek to within one with a blistering slap shot from the blueline with just 33 seconds left on the clock.

Xpertek had one last chance to tie the game with the goalie on the bench for an extra attacker, but both Lemay and Etienne Dutrisac, filling in up front while John Richardson was presumably at home with a newborn child, failed to corral a loose puck in close before time expired.

In the end, it was just as well that way.


THREE STARS

1. Pat Lafontaine – Good gaffes keep Xpertek HC in Molson Ex division
2. Martin Leroux – Stamina like a Clydesdale, played all night
3. Brett Kubicek – Plays entire game after overseas trip to check on illegitimate children, allegedly